Robert Spencer: The Worldwide Rise of Islamic Anti-Semitism

InÂ PJ MediaÂ this morning I discuss the rise in antisemitism that the world community has missed in all its anxiety over “Islamophobia”:

“Anyone who loves freedom and justice must strive for the annihilation of the Zionist regime in order to pave the way for world justice and freedom.”Â So said Iranian President Mahmoud AhmadinejadÂ to an audience of ambassadors from Muslim countries last Thursday. The ambassadors had convened in Tehran for Quds Day â€” Jerusalem Day â€” an annual airing of Islamic supremacist Jew-hatred and Zionist conspiracy-mongering begun by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.

The world has grown used to the spectacle of a head of government, Ahmadinejad, calling for the destruction of a nation-state that poses no threat to his regime â€” after all, he has done it so many times before. But Islamic anti-Semitism is also on the rise around the world. Indeed, so many Muslim leaders around the world so routinely call for the destruction of Israel and a new genocide of the Jews (which would almost certainly go hand-in-hand with that destruction, if it ever actually came about), that such calls are becoming as dull with familiarity as Ahmadinejad’s repeated predictions of Israel’s imminent demise.

Last June, a Pakistani Muslim cleric namedÂ Pirzada Muhammad Raza Saqib Mustafai saidÂ the following in a YouTube video titled “Jews Are the Real Enemy of Islam and Peace”: “And all the troubles that exist around the world are because of the Jews. When the Jews are wiped out, then the world would be purified and the sun of peace would begin to rise on the entire world.”

Such clerics are not obscure eccentrics enunciating a twisted, hijacked version of Islam. In January 2009, the most popular Islamic preacher in the world, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi,Â said on al-Jazeera: “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them â€“ even though they exaggerated this issue â€“ he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers….”

Qaradawi continued: “I’d like to say that the only thing I hope for is that as my life approaches its end, Allah will give me an opportunity to go to the land of Jihad and resistance, even if in a wheelchair. I will shoot Allah’s enemies, the Jews, and they will throw a bomb at me, and thus, I will seal my life with martyrdom.”

This hatred increasingly plays out in attacks on individuals. A few weeks ago, Shasta Khan, a Muslim woman in Britain,Â received an eight-year prison sentencefor her role in plots to target Jews in bomb attacks. During her trial, she stated that her husband hadÂ forced her to drive through Jewish areasÂ looking for likely targets. Last week, police in IndiaÂ indicted a Muslim journalist, Syed Mohammad Kazmi, for his role in the bombing of an Israeli diplomat’s car. Also last week, when the Lebanese Olympic judo team discovered that it was training in sight of the Israeli team, it demanded that a barrier be constructed so that they could not see the Jews; the International Olympic Committee complied. Several days ago in the German town of Stein,Â a Muslim sprayed two women with tear gasÂ because one of them was wearing a Star of David. And last week in Santa Monica, California, the trial began of Tehmina Adaya, the Muslim owner of the Shangri-La resort hotel. Adaya is charged with discrimination against Jewish hotel guests: she allegedly told hotel staff to “Get the [expletive deleted] Jews out of my pool.”

Islamist groupÂ Hizb ut-TahrirÂ says that “The Jewish entity is the crux of the disease and the scourge in the region, and wherever they settle they bring calamities to the nation.”AÂ Salafist groupÂ in the northern Sinai said the attack against Egyptian soldiers was a “terrorist act that serves only the Jews.”An article in an Iraqi resistance group newspaper,Â Al Basrah, says that “Can there be a collapse of the Zionist entity?! Do we have an analysis or a clear vision for it?! Answer: Yes, the Koran tells us thatÂ the Jews are cowards and submissive and weakÂ themselves, if they gain strength and dominance and control it is because of external forces…This is how the Koran says to defeat the Jews and their inability to hold power permanently…”

A writer forÂ Al Watan VoiceÂ says “the Zionist enemy and his intelligence and his cronies carried out this terrorist act and the evidence ofÂ this is the history of the dirty Jews, full of such crimesÂ from the beginning of history; they have been killed Prophets and kill children and the elderly and their assassinations here and there are without any regard for humanity nor of morality.”

But the stories aren’t all bad. Why, this article inÂ Shorouk NewsÂ explains that “in the eyes of these Islamists, the Muslims in Egypt who have sold themselves to the West and the United States, and those who sold themselves to the Shiites in Iraq, and also those who sold themselves for Bashar al-Assad in Syria -Â they are much worse than the Jews and Americans.” Meaning that even a relatively sober newspaper that knows that Islamists attacked the Egyptian soldiers accepts as a fact that Jews and Americans are bad, but the Islamists think that some other Muslims are even worse.

The sisterÂ of Hamas Prime Minister in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh recently entered Israel along with her husband, who received urgent treatment at the Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, Ynet has learned.

Four months ago the husband of Suhila Abd el-Salam Ahmed Haniyeh suffered a serious cardiac episode which could not be treated at any hospital in Gaza. After the couple filed an urgent entry request with Israeli authorities, a Palestinian ambulance transported the husband to the Erez Crossing, where he was moved to a Magen David Adom vehicle and taken to the hospital in Petah Tikva along with his wife.

The husband was hospitalized in Israel for about a week, during which his condition was stabilized. Following the treatment, the couple returned to Gaza.

I know, I know. I’m engaging in “terrorist-washing,” publicizing how Israel treats the families of terrorists in a vain attempt to distract the world from their daily attacks against, uh, terrorists.